Monday, January 13, 2014

Read Aloud and Memory Work Update

This morning, we started our second week of school after the new year. We are still finishing up memorizing "The Lord's Prayer." All three boys can say it beautifully together, but individually, the little ones still struggle a bit with the last few lines. However, that should be fine by the end of the week. So next week, we move on to Psalm 23.

I fixed one "glitch" today: told my 8yo that the Lord's name is "Hallowed," not "Hollowed " which means "empty." Thankfully, the "jinxing" has stopped, and even the uncontrollable urge to do so has subsided--which they heroically kept in check after I forbid it. I think I've only heard one whispered "Jinx!" during memory work since we started school back up last week.

As for read-aloud, last semester we finished "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Charlotte's Web" with huge success and improvement in reading skills for all three boys. They loved the stories. Just before Christmas, we tried "Little House in the Big Woods." That did not work. Those boys need action and adventure.... or something.

Anyway, for Advent, we read Christmas books, and after some consideration, we started school last week reading aloud "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe."

Bingo. It's a hit.

And I thought, that with C.S. Lewis, I would get a break from my 8yo "fallacy detective" who likes to interrupt with any fallacies or inconsistencies he instantly recognizes in the story.

Nope. Not even C.S. Lewis can escape this boy.

We read in chapter four, the scene where Lucy finds Edmund in Narnia, and they both walk together back to the spare room.

It says, "By this time, they had walked a good way. Then suddenly, they felt coats around them instead of branches, and the next moment they were both standing outside the wardrobe in the empty room."

Aram interrupts and says, "But that doesn't make sense. Edmund SHUT the wardrobe door, remember? How did they get out so easily."

And he had a point. Lewis did make a big deal, several times in the book, of saying how foolish it is to shut one's self into a wardrobe, so it is glaringly clear when he mentions Edmund is foolish enough to shut the door completely when he goes in.

I've never had a kid who thinks like this. What will it mean for his future? Lawyer?

As an aside, I have learned that having him do something artistic and creative every day keeps him from having "Logic freak-outs." He used to just freeze, and then start convulsing if, in the course of his schoolwork, we came to a subjective/creative question like, "Pretend you are a snail. What do you see?" He's not a snail. He never will be. Why in the world should he even think about something like that? Seizures. Literally.

But he has learned to deal... sometimes in his own nerdy way. Today, for his Art Journal, he is drawing his "Etch-a-Sketch." He drew a picture on the Etch-a-Sketch first, so he would have something to draw in his art journal. But he entertained himself mentally for quite some time, imagining himself drawing an eternal Etch-a-Sketch picture.... you know, a drawing of an Etch-a-Sketch that has a drawing of an Etch-a-Sketch, that has a drawing of an Etch-a-Sketch... and so on.

I am so excited to watch this boy grow up! But I have enough fun just watching him each day!